


Cut the String

by yekaterina



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Asphyxiation, F/M, Intellectual Intercourse, Masturbation, Trans Katya, the sensuality of the age difference only exists when they are adults, two professors are better than one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 11:52:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14496393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yekaterina/pseuds/yekaterina
Summary: “I bet that was fun,” His voice catches as she sets her hands on his shoulders to steady herself as she wiggles out of her heels, losing inconsequential centimeters in favor of sliding her feet into the soft shoes. He sinks under the weight of her warm palms and he's feeling stuffy in his fleece cardigan. His face is growing hot, he blames it on the thick, untrimmed hairs of his beard.“Sure was. I’ll tell you all about it over a drink sometime, hm?” She says, throwing the backpack around her shoulders again. She draws her hands away from him and starts to bend down to pick up her heels, but he does it for her. He handles the shoes with a reverence she hasn’t shown to them, given the scuff marks on the pointed toes.





	Cut the String

**Author's Note:**

> i have tried to write a professor au multiple times but i never liked what i came up with. eventually, i realized the solution to my problem was a simple algorithm i had realized prior, ala "two butches are better than one". two professors are better than one! this is the result of that finding.
> 
> the Supplicant series by UNHhhh, A Philosophical Anthology of Fucking and Are You Good? by campholmes, and fear & delight by madshelley all drove me into really wanting to write something of my own about fucking professors. so i give thanks to them.
> 
> the title is from "15 step" by radiohead.
> 
> happy birthday katya! i love you <3

Brian is shouldering his bag and carrying a paper cup of tea so hot that he thinks the college logo embossed on it must be branding his palm. He keeps having to jerk his chest back to dodge the sloshing insides as he follows a woman who is twice his height and twice his presence. Every woman he has met here so far has been twice his presence. He loves them all.

He had mixed up Old Bruner building with the New Bruner building and he strode into a nude painting class, thinking it was the location of his ten o’clock session. He apologized his way out of the room and into the hall, and into the back of an Art Department professor named Thorgy who has taken pity on him.

His head is still pounding from the sight of a balding Adonis on earth and he catches what Thorgy says the second time she says it. She is a saint. Her face, hands, and her arms are all caked in clay. He imagines her to be a moving statue. Her apron that is as coated in her work as she is smells like the childhood nights he spent crafting pottery with his grandmother.

“Even I haven't fucked up like this before," Thorgy says. Her eyes are wide with exasperation as she glances over at him. He tries not to laugh. “Hell, the emails, Brian! The emails! Didn’t they send a PDF of the map to you before the year started?”

“I’m not really into tech stuff,” He says, looking around at the students mulling by in the spacious hallway, staring down at their phones. The building he is inside is even more magnificent than the last. Brian believes this will be a reoccurring theme. His eyes shoot up to the dark mahogany arches far above the heads of everyone.

“Jesus,” She mutters. He can see the smile on her face as he looks sidelong at her. He smiles in turn at the seemingly endless hallway ahead of them. Countless glass display cases line the walls; broken artifacts and withering paper documents sealed inside tempt him to break away from Thorgy's guidance, but he is afraid she will leave him behind if he stops to trace his fingers over the glass.

She comes to a stop outside a door on their left marked with the same number as the nude painting class, prompting a self-ridiculing scoff from him. She shushes him and she cracks the door open to poke her head in.

Brian can hear a deep woman’s voice echoing inside the lecture hall, interspersed with the sound of chalk dragging across a board. He can't make heads or tails of what she is saying, her Russian accent slowing his understanding. A hundred keyboards are clicking in a race to keep up. Thorgy takes great care in shutting the door after a thoughtful hum and she turns around to shake her head at him.

“Looks like you’re early!” She claps her hands and clay flies off of her fingers and onto what is exposed of his flannel shirt. He scrapes it off with his thumbnail and laughs through his nose before flicking it off. “There is a class still in session. And for future reference, they email you the night before if there are any classroom changes. Mr. Technophobe.”

“Thank you for everything, professor.” Brian raises his cup in salute. It is half-empty from keeping up with her rapid pace and unpredictable turns.

She rolls her eyes but pats his shoulder, leaving behind a tan handprint on his cardigan. She says an Oops! as she walks past him and back to the studio she’s left unattended or to her smoke break.

Brian doesn’t see a point in returning back to the desolation of his new office so he waits outside the lecture hall, sits down on a bench against the opposite wall. His eyes roam over the posters and flyers tacked up on the cork-board stretched across the wall. He touches the wet handprint on his shoulder and rubs the clay between his fingertips, brings it up to his nose to smell.

Ten minutes go by with him waiting, head tipped back against the wall and his eyes closed, his shoulder bag in his lap, his empty cup posed against his boot on the tile floor. He couldn’t find a trashcan nearby. He hears the door ahead of him open, but he doesn’t do anything, just waits until the loudness of the students filing out of it passes and the hallway is silent.

Brian doesn’t register the clicking of heels quick enough. He opens his eyes to a woman standing over him, her finger in his face. She is grinning, running her tongue over her teeth, but her brows are furrowed and her angular nose is scrunched up.

He must be witnessing something beyond human comprehension, surely his own, because all his thoughts melt away and down into his throat that dries out the longer she stares down at him, and he up at her.

“Dr. Firkus. Our new expert on Native American studies,” She says, her voice becoming clearer with every word. He supposes she is asking him a question but she states it to him. She turns her hand over in an offer for a shake and he takes it, more-so cradles her palm as he pushes his bag out of his lap to stand.

Her hands are rougher than his own, but delicate still. He moves ever careful as to not knock over the paper cup by his foot. She doesn't notice.

“How'd you know?” He is still holding her hand and her smile lowers into something else, but he still can see it present on her face. His own dies as he realizes he has no idea who she is. He is desperate to know. “I’m sorry, what’s—”

“Dr. Zamolodchikova,” She retracts her hand from his and he can see the age spots on her skin as she smooths her fingers down her blazer, unbuttoning it button by button. Her eyes are tired. Either she has had a morning full of uninspired classes covering introductions and syllabi or she is the kind to hit the ground running and has tuckered herself out from first-day lecturing. “Yekaterina.”

The light bulb turns on in his head and he is giddy with the knowledge of her name, who she is. He begins retracing all the introductions he made at the History Department meeting in the summer. She wasn’t there, he would have remembered her. But he had heard all about her.

He had been told a story about her and a former colleague getting into what has been deemed ‘The Great Argument of ’05 Graduation' enough times by enough people that he felt as if he was there for it.

“You cover European history,” Brian says, with no interest in hiding the excitement in his voice. She entertains him with a soft mhm and her crows feet deepen behind the smudged glass of her clear-framed eyeglasses. She isn’t wearing any makeup. “With a focus on Eastern Europe. Russia! But also somewhere on the Western front…”

He drifts off, unsure. She raises her unkempt brows and angles her chin up, waiting for him to figure it out for himself. He feels like a student before her. With the mane of grey hair she has pulled back into a messy bun, one curl lying limp against her sharp cheek and the other in a lively swirl against her pink ear, he is sure he could have been.

She is wearing silver sun and moon earrings and the metal looks cool and inviting in the August warmth of the hallway.

“France?” Brian tries. Yekaterina closes her eyes and pops her head up and down in a quick nod. She is smiling again. He scans across every single pearly white that is lined up with a precision that doesn’t sync up with the rest of her.

Wrapped tight around her feet are red kitten heels, but she’s wearing dark blue jeans rolled up past her ankles. She is sporting a green velvet blazer, the sleeves rolled up past her elbows, which are sharp and look far better cared for than her hands. An orange and brown flowery patterned pashmina tied in a loose knot hangs over her torso, covering the black t-shirt she is wearing.

“I didn’t get to meet you in the summer,” He says. A couple of students pass by them, one saying a hello to Yekaterina to which she responds back warmly, and with a slow wave. “You were the one out abroad.”

“Yes! Yes, that was me,” Yekaterina says, nodding again. Whatever memories are emerging in her head have her looking more like she’s in the present. She’d be paler if she wasn’t sunburned and he imagines her supervising diligent students under the hot red sun. “I was at the excavations of Malvieu with my graduate students, doing a bit of digging.”

She stares at him until she decides to sling the straps of a black leather backpack he’s just noticed off of her shoulders. She sticks her arm down into the main pouch of it and pulls out two moccasins, drops them onto the floor. Brian laughs a little and she shrugs, nudges them into place with her feet.

“I bet that was fun,” His voice catches as she sets her hands on his shoulders to steady herself as she wiggles out of her heels, losing inconsequential centimeters in favor of sliding her feet into the soft shoes. He sinks under the weight of her warm palms and he's feeling stuffy in his fleece cardigan. His face is growing hot, he blames it on the thick, untrimmed hairs of his beard.

“Sure was. I’ll tell you all about it over a drink sometime, hm?” She says, throwing the backpack around her shoulders again. She draws her hands away from him and starts to bend down to pick up her heels, but he does it for her. He handles the shoes with a reverence she hasn’t shown to them, given the scuff marks on the pointed toes.

He earns an Aw, thanks! as he moves behind her to put them into her bag and he latches the straps for her as well. She turns around to face him and she slides her hands into her pants pockets. They’re big on her, men’s jeans, squeezed tight around her small waist by a belt.

“I hope you’re an early bird again, Firkus," She's looking up at him and sucks in her taut cheeks. "See you around.”

A sparse group of students collects around him as she walks away, their question Are you Dr. Firkus? falling on deaf ears. He simply picks his bag up off the bench and drops the strap across his chest, plucks his cup off of the floor, and gestures for them to file into the room before him.

It is then that he sees the chalk dust coating his hand. He curls his fingers into his palm and looks to the hall for any trace signs of Yekaterina, but she is gone.

 

He is sifting through his mail when two knocks on his open door tell him to look up. Having just met with a student a couple minutes ago, he expects to see them coming back with another question about the preservation projects opportunities he spoke of in class.

Instead, he is graced by the blurry sight of Yekaterina leaning against the doorframe. Brian takes off his reading glasses and folds them up, sets them to the side.

Her hair is down and it flows in tangled curls to her breasts where she has let it grow out past her shoulders. One of her fists is pushing into her hip, her wrist twisting around ever so slightly. She has a shiny black smoking pipe between her lips. She is puffing smoke into his office like the small square room is her own personal hearth.

The smell rolling off of her isn't the rough scratch of tobacco and he has an inkling of what else it could be. He doesn't expect anything less from someone who cut their teeth lecturing at a Californian school before cruising to the East Coast.

He's caught up with her by now, learned all he could about her teaching history via research and word of mouth from her past students. If he has developed a reputation because of this, it is unbeknownst to him and Yekaterina. Or he is just too stubborn to admit it and she is too stubborn to not address it unless Brian himself does a grand reveal.

She twists her head back and forth to look all over his office. Behind the third pair of eyeglasses she’s had since he’s known her (this pair is turquoise and tortoiseshell) are her sleepy green eyes, lighting up at the sight of the giant dreamcatcher on the wall behind his desk.

It is as if she hasn't seen it every other time she has shown up at his door. She has paid him many a visit, has seen his office from its barren, all cream-colored beginnings to the cozy tapestry-covered and antique lamp lit den that it has evolved into.

Her eyes drop down to meet his and she grins.

”You’re very handsome when you’re hard at work,” She says, in the same teasing tone she always uses when she bullshits him. He rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair, quiets down a smile. 

"What's that you're wearing?" Brian asks. She's draped in velvet, a deep color of red. He hopes she wears no other material when she wants to be comfortable. It is a robe-type situation, the belt of it accentuates her slim waist and he is fascinated by the bow she has tied, knowing it is right at her belly button. He'd like to pull it undone. "I wanna call you Hugh Hefner."

"Smoking jacket. And you're free to do so if you'd like," She speaks with a lisp, her teeth clamped. She taps the bowl of the pipe twice and it bounces between her lips. "Do you?"

"Oh, no. Nothing that harsh, Hef," Brian leans forward and crosses his arms over the leather pad on his desk, digs his fingers into his biceps. His ankles cross below, his argyle pattern covered feet curling into the thin carpet. Yekaterina stays put, unmoving except for her wrist that hasn't ceased its rotations. If it is aching, he would do whatever she says would soothe the pain.

"It's not tobacco!" She says, before taking a deep toke from the pipe. A wisp of smoke floats out of the fat bowl and into nothingness, disappearing inside the span of amiable silence that settles between them. She extracts the pipe after a moment, and a line of spit connects her mouth to the tip of it before she drags her knuckles across her lips. Brian bites the inside of his cheek.

"Are you busy?" Yekaterina asks, propping a fist under her chin. She is wearing a mask of polite hesitation but she doesn't allow him time to respond. "No? Walk with me."

 

They walk along a cobblestone path that loops around their office building and leads to a wide pond. The deep green water is punctured in places by sloping white tree branches and an assortment of ducks are swimming on the surface. Distant quacks mix in with the voices of students on their way to classes and the howling wind through the leaves of the surrounding trees.

Said wind tosses Yekaterina's hair to and fro, tangling it up even more so than it was. Brian runs a hand through it to try to tame her curls. The futile gesture makes her laugh and jerk her head away from him, kick the back of his ankle with her boot.

On their way out she had popped into her office, left him waiting outside her door covered in flyers for lectures and the school's LGBT club events. Her mailbox was stuffed to the brim and the calendar posted beside it was a year old. He chastised her for it through the crack that he could see her through and he earned a muttered Mind your business! in retort.

She came out having exchanged her smoking jacket for a navy blue double-breasted coat, and she resembles a naval officer, with her pipe still between her lips, weed replaced by tobacco. It is a non-smoking campus, but he finds humor in her attempt to be somewhat less of a troublemaker.

"You haven't made any other friends have you?" She asks. Yekaterina's eyes are suspicious and her tone is disappointed like he has done her a personal wrong. After months of companionship, he knows such an observation to be true, what with all the luncheons and dinners she has forced him to be her escort for.

Forced is a strong word. There is little she has to do or say to get him to do anything she’d prefer, but he's too prideful to not act bothered by it.

"Why do you say that?" He asks. A yellow leaf floats down from a tree hanging over them and it almost hits her in the face, but he swats it away, sending it into a spin. It is crushed under her foot, unnoticed by her.

"I haven't seen you at the History Department trivia night yet," She pulls out her pipe and jabs it towards him. His tweed coat is going to smell like smoke for a day or two and he'll bring his nose to the material every time he takes it off and every time he puts it back on again. "Which means you either haven't been invited or you've no interest in coming."

"Why wouldn't you have invited me?" Brian feels a little affronted and can’t help his voice from raising in a slight whine. Yekaterina rolls her eyes.

"Not everything has to be a Sadie Hawkins dance between us," She says, elbowing him in the bicep. She then loops her arm around his, her thumb stroking the fabric of his tweed coat. "Take some initiative."

"Please invite me to trivia night," He states in a monotone, coming to a stop in the middle of the path. She eyes him as she takes a toke of her pipe. He folds his arms and she scoffs, tugs on one of his arms to free it and pulls him forward.

"I'll consider it," Yekaterina says, bored. She leads him to the spot they have come to call their own on these excursions. It is an old, half-crumbling bench by the shallow edge of the pond. Brian approaches the rougher side of the bench without a word, as he has all the previous times they've come here. He drapes his coat over the wood like a blanket and they sit down, cross their legs in the same way.

The sunlight is cold and colorless with the cloudy skies above, casting her face in a white glow. Her skin is paler these days, the sunburn from their first meeting long healed by time and whatever herbal remedies she concocts in her woodshed, or whatever the hell she dwells in. He is doubtful she touches store-bought aloe vera in a studio apartment.

"With that being said, I would like to treat you to drinks again," She says. He throws an arm over the back of the bench and she scoots closer to his side. "How does tonight sound? Tomorrow I have to pack for a trip and yesterday was yesterday, so."

They have become drinking buddies in the time they've spent together. Like the formal settings she takes him to, she wastes his time by taking him to her favorite bar, a tiny pub that is in a perpetual state of being filled more by the deep tones of the jukebox within its brick walls built in the 1970s than it is with people. Brian is sure that she is the reason it hasn't closed down.

"I'm bringing my papers with me again," He says. Doing work at the bar every time they go out is just asking for her to set down her glasses of hard cider all over his spread out pages, but he does it anyway. It's a front, gives him something to do with his hands, gives him something to think about that isn't her.

"If you think you'll get anything done this time," Yekaterina knows him too well, makes him squirm in his seat. She takes a drag of her pipe and wraps her hand around his knee, pulls on it to uncross his legs and she twists around to set her feet in his lap. "I'll help you out."

"Would you really?" He leans towards her in surprise, making the aging wood underneath him creak. She has never offered to help before; she is the reason his weekends are stuffed to the brim with grading and planning, with the only reprieve being touching himself in the shower to the thought of her every night and collapsing into his bed.

"God, no."

 

"Don't you think мой брат has a stick up his ass, Sasha?" Yekaterina smirks at him as she chomps on the third cigarette she's had since they arrived. She is chalking up a pool cue, her wrist twisting again, the vein in her bicep bulging.

"Don't call me that," Brian warns. He hates it when she calls him мой брат or mon frère. She says the terms of endearment so warmly he worries that she means it. Sasha laughs behind him.

He turns away from her with a frown on his lips and is face to face with Sasha, the bartender who is as Russian as his colleague and is as much of an enabler in keeping him from being productive whenever he is here. Sasha's wiping the inside of a glass in such a piss-poor way, it indicates she's only in here and not in the back room taking a nap to enjoy their antics.

"Why not?" Yekaterina shouts it over the sound of Stevie Nicks' Edge of Seventeen. Brian huffs and looks down at the page he's marked with so much red that it more-so resembles a blood-splattered painting than a pop quiz on trade patterns of the Iroquois pre-colonization. He doubts he could decipher this student's handwriting if he was sober.

"You'll give Sasha the wrong idea," He mutters, adjusting on the stool. Sasha laughs at him the same as Yekaterina and he can hear her voice getting closer. He drops his pen and runs his finger around the inside of his half-empty glass of beer, his second of the night, picks up the white foam so he can suck it off of his fingertip. He keeps his eyes trained on the caramel liquid in the glass.

"What's the right one?" She murmurs, as she squeezes one of his shoulder blades. He bites down on his finger, only to suck on it harder to keep from making a sound of pain or arousal. He's drawing blood. She ashes her cigarette on the bar and squeezes his other shoulder blade, begins kneading his sore muscles. Her breath is warm on his neck. "Brian, my guy, you're so wound up. I hate to see it. Really, I do."

"Then go blind," He counters, speaking around his finger and looking up to stare straight ahead at the red neon beer sign where Sasha was standing. He doesn't know where she disappeared to. He's annoyed that she's missing him biting back harder than usual and he grows further of the belief that she and Yekaterina are conspiring against him; conspiring what exactly, he doesn't know. 

"You need to relax more. Smoke more?" She gestures in a suggestion of him taking a hit, her fingers in front of his mouth. He swats her hand away but she catches it, digs her nails into his palm. She presses her body into his back and he feels her nose drag over the shell of his ear. "Fuck more?"

Brian bites down on his finger again and she pulls away, disappears out of his peripherals and presumably returns to the lone pool table by the open window. He takes one last look at his papers and says a fuck it to himself. He is just as guilty of wasting his time as she is. Even more-so than she is.

It occurs to him that he's wasting hers as well, that she gets bored easily, that she should've moved on from him by now. But she hasn't. He relaxes his muscles, his mind, like she said to, and he decides to not let his window of opportunity close because he wanted to be the one to be confronted.

"Finish your beer and play a game with me. You've been sitting on that fat ass all night."

 

"You're cheating," He says. Yekaterina looks up from her position behind the cue ball and she rises up slowly, stands with her pool cue at her side like it is a scepter. Her hair falls in her face and she blows at a strand to send it flying to the top of her head.

"Excuse me?" The red lighting of the bar mixes with the darkness to split her face in half-red, half-shadow. She looks menacing, her spreading smile that is meant to convey her joking tone is twisted into something more predatory. His knees buckle for a moment but he keeps himself upright, even if his head is swirling from the beer he finished and the hard cider he's been sharing with her during their game of pool.

"You're fucking cheating," Brian points at her with his own cue, his grip is white-knuckled even as his palms are slathered in sweat. He's been staring at her ass every time she bends over the table. Her jeans are form-fitting for once and curve around her in a way that has him wanting to stuff his nose in-between her cheeks and rub her skin raw with his beard. "You thought I wasn't looking and you nudged the eight ball."

"Fuck you, I did not," She's laughing, not caring to sell her story to him in the slightest. She slams the end of the pool cue down on the ground loud enough to spook him and she grips her stomach as the laughter rolls through her. Had it not been for her appearance, he could not have been convinced that she is so much older than him. She is so much livelier than he is.

"You're a liar too. And a bad one at that," He shakes his head and fights hard to keep a smile off of his face. He loses the fight. "Since when did you pick up that habit?"

"Since when did you grow a pair?" Yekaterina is still laughing and sets her pool cue down in the middle of the table, ruining the set-up from his previous shot. She walks away to the jukebox, plunges her hand into her jeans pocket and takes out quarters to shove into the slot.

She pokes at the buttons much harder than she needs to as she goes through the songs. She's just going to pick _Edge of Seventeen_  again. Maybe a Heart song, if he's that lucky. He doesn't count on it.

"Are you going to answer me?" She asks, not even looking at him. Brian glances over to the open window, closes his eyes as a cool breeze rushes in. He drags the back of his hand across his forehead and wipes off the sweat from his brow. It is always warm inside this place but it is always so much hotter when he is drunk and Yekaterina is teasing him.

He opens his eyes to see her ass sticking out and wiggling to the silence inside the bar as she pretends to deliberate over the music selection. He gets a stirring between his legs and he turns around, leans back against the edge of the pool table. He goes over her qualities that should set him straight; she's a frustrating colleague, a divorced mother of two in her early sixties, and an even more frustrating friend.

Brian finds this effort serves only to make things worse. He unbuttons the top three buttons of his shirt and gives thanks to the quick whip of icy air from the window for cooling him down.

"Pick something we can dance to—" She selects Stevie again and Brian groans, sets his pool cue over hers to form an X. He pops off the table's edge and walks towards her, starts to brush past her in a display of mock-contempt, but she spins them both around, grips his arm and winds it around her waist, winds one of hers around his. He takes her free hand and interlaces their fingers, making her grin up at him.

"Are you trying to lead?" She asks. He's guiding her around to the slow beat of an old George Jones song playing in his head, tuning out the music, the sounds of cars and people outside; everything but Yekaterina's voice, the sounds her shoes make against the wood floor. He swears the room has gotten darker around them, that what lights there are choose solely to illuminate her. He can't blame them.

"I am leading," He says. She mimics him, mocking his dry tone, but sets her head against his chest nonetheless and sways with him. He noses her hair that smells like smoke and rests his cheek on the top of her head. "Taking initiative.”

With his whisper, he can feel her tense against him, then she relaxes, sighs a little. She grips him harder around the waist, makes his knees twitch and his feet twist to stand pigeon-toed as he spins her around even slower.

"What did you think of Dr. Donigan's article on prehistoric body decoration?" She asks, after some quiet. Though her body betrays her, her voice is a steady murmur. He smiles into her hair, finally understanding her game and how she plays it, how she wants him to play it. "Did you find it insightful or trite?"

"I thought it was pedantic, but she knows her shit," He says. Yekaterina laughs into his chest, ear pressing against the slight softness of his pecs. He goes on with saying how Donigan always writes like she's beating around the bush, but it is more him waiting for her to simmer down, so he can take her by surprise. "And I want you to take me home and fuck me."

Her grip on him tightens, and he lets out a surprised gasp, but she keeps swaying with him like an easy breeze. 

”We were talking about your rivalry with Dr. Donigan,” She says. Her heartbeat quickens against him and he breathes her in. His mouth opens to moan but he doesn't form a sound. “But if you want to continue this conversation back at your place, I suppose that’s just as well.”

"I don’t want to talk about her,” His voice is breaking in half. He runs his hand up from her waist and drags his nails up her back, settles his hands in her hair, her curls pouring out from between his fingers. Her eyes slip closed and her head tilts back, her lips parting as he massages her scalp. His throat tries to close up on him, but he manages to continue in a whisper. “I want your attention on me,  _Katya_ , please.”

His fingers still before he tugs on her hair, pulling her out of her daze. She blinks up at him and a smile grows on her face until she is giggling. He's frozen in place, sweat spreading on his neck and lower back as he does everything in his power not to fall to his knees and take her into his mouth right then. He lets go of her hair but encircles her wrists and squeezes lightly to remind her of what he's said.

"Alright. Easy, big guy," She pats his belly to calm him, then squeezes him right on the curve of it hard enough to make him cry out. His head feels heavier than it has all night and he drops it down onto her shoulder. She brings her hand up to cradle the back of his head and she drops her voice to a placating whisper. “We’ll go. You get our things. I’ll get a car.”

Their things consist of his manila folder of papers on the bar and their coats hanging on a rack by the entrance, his tweed one engulfed by the wool of hers. Sasha reappears behind the bar as Brian gathers his papers and she grins wide at him as he closes out the tab. He rolls his eyes at her and plucks bills out of his wallet for her tip. For someone he hasn't spoken to much, she's easy to bullshit with.

Brian exits the bar with everything held tight against his chest. The coldness of the night decidedly does the opposite of sobering him up; Yekaterina looks up from her phone to see him leaning against one of the street trees lining the sidewalk, holding the collar of her coat up to his nose.

She has to pry it out of his hands and convince him to put on his coat as well so that they don't freeze. When the Uber arrives, she grabs him by the belt loops and shoves him into the backseat before her. Yekaterina's attitude shifts into a quiet one in the car. It clashes with the driver's 90s R&B playlist and Brian worries that he's done something to upset her and that she's going to drop him off and leave him behind.

His doubts still linger even as she follows after him when they're at his apartment, leading him to look over his shoulder every few steps as they go upstairs until they reach his door. Brian leads her to his bedroom and spins to flop backwards onto his bed. He spreads his arms and legs and laughs at himself, but doesn't hear her join in.

Brian lifts his head to see Yekaterina sitting on the edge of his bed, looking around. His apartment, and thus his bedroom, is minimalistic and cold, where his office is antiquey and warm. He needs a clear distinction between home and work in the physical sense that he is barely afforded in the mental sense. Her being here ruins what small distinction there was in his mind.

He doesn't remember the bedside lamp being turned on, gifting him the sight of Yekaterina in soft yellow lighting. Her skin is glowing and he's sure he can feel her heat radiating off of her. His hips shift and he drops his head back onto the mattress. 

"Hey," He says, softly. She turns her head to train her eyes on him and he smiles at her before staring up at the ceiling. “What are you gonna do with me?”

“I’m getting a ride home and leaving you here," She says. Brian pouts but nods in agreement, knowing he was right earlier. He slings himself back up into a sitting position and laces his hands together in his lap. She rubs her eyes and reaches over to pat his knee. "It's late, and I'm too out of it to do much. I think you are, too.”

“Okay,” He scoots over to be closer to her and his voice lowers to a whisper that he breathes into her warm cheek. “But when you go, I’m gonna think about you and make myself come.”

Katya moans a little and he takes in the smell behind her ear. Sweat and Old Spice. She must not believe that women’s products do anything besides smell good. It’s practical. She could use his soap in his bathroom like it is her own. She elbows him like they’re joking teenagers and sends him slumping to the side. She runs a shaky hand through her hair and he grins.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m gonna touch myself when you leave,” Brian continues. He swallows, lets his head fall back onto the bed until his whole body does as well. His legs spread at the sight of Yekaterina’s eyes flashing before her eyelids droop and her shoulders sink. “I do it all the time, thinking about you. I hope you do the same.”

" _Brian_ ," She says in a reprimand although she's smiling, speaking through gritted teeth. She grips his thigh hard and he bounces between moans and giggles. She finally laughs. "You don't have to be so cruel to me."

"I just want to see you naked," He whispers, not thinking. She shouldn't be able to hear it, as he's pleading to some higher power. Or talking to himself, his past self, chastising the man who drank too much and threw away tonight, acting like the next morning has already settled its loneliness down upon his chest, even though she is still here with him.

Yekaterina stands up and he starts to panic that she's leaving, but she tells him to shut up before he even begins to whine, making him gasp instead. She's hard, he just notices it then. There's a dark spot on her leg and she unbuttons her pants to pull them down. She shimmies her high rise underwear down to her strong thighs and he cups his crotch to feel how hard he is himself. 

Her dick is pink and perfect and she's dripping down onto her feet, his wooden bedroom floor. She wraps a hand around her dick and begins to pump herself, staring down at him. He sits up and grabs at the air, wanting to hold her, but she motions for him to stay down. Her chest is heaving as she continues to jerk off. Her small breasts look so soft underneath her blouse. He doesn't remember her taking off her coat.

She moans as he watches her work in relative silence, save for his breathing turning heavy. His fingers dig into the duvet and she comes after he starts to repeat her name, squirting onto the bedding by his thigh. Yekaterina pulls up her clothes quickly and murmurs an even quicker goodbye, hurries out of his room before he can make sense of what just happened.

He crawls down the bed and noses what she's left behind for him. He moans, buries his face in the bedding and pulls it up around his head, suffocating himself. He kisses up her come, sucking on the duvet and licking into his mouth what he can.

She forgot her coat. He picks it up off the floor and he pulls it on backwards before falling asleep.

 

On the following Monday, Brian opens his office door to Yekaterina sitting in his chair, her ankles crossed over his desk. She’s not smoking, but she’s reading through essays he left unattended. She’s chewing on the tip of a Bic pen when she looks up at him to smile, and she tosses the papers and pen onto his desk and leans back in the chair.

“I'm still recovering from Friday night," He states, not intending to shut her down but completely uninterested in a repeat of the weekend. He woke up Saturday a mess, his bed and pants wet because of her, his head pounding because of her, the day and the Sunday after lonely because of her.

“We’re not going to drink," She's swiveling his chair back and forth, sitting with her fingers locked in her lap. He wants to sit on it. She's smirking at him and biting back a laugh like she finds herself ridiculous. He finds himself ridiculous, already blushing at the sound of her voice. "We have unfinished business.”

He holds off from saying a snide comment and just nods, pretending to agree out of boredom. She snorts and hops up out of his chair, circles the desk in a manner spryer than he ever has to urge him right back out the door. He leaves behind his bicycle where it is propped up in the corner of his office without Yekaterina needing to offer him a ride.

In the passenger seat of her ancient car, he pulls out his phone and sends out an email to his students canceling his office hours. They listen to her _Greatest Hits of the 80s_ CDs on the way to her house and discuss the day's classes. It goes unspoken that all talk of work will cease after she pulls into her driveway. 

  
   
Brian stops after a few steps through her front door, bending over to untie his boots. Yekaterina comes to stand behind him, her hands stroking the back of his head, nails scratching over the stubble across his skin. His boot laces cut into his fingers with how hard he wraps them around his fingers as she strokes over him, fingers grazing down the back of his neck.

He shudders when she pushes her nails firmer into his flesh after she moves them down to his shoulders, and his dick gets harder the further down she moves her hands. He manages to slip out of his boots just before she digs her fingers into his ass cheeks and draws out a clipped moan from him. He braces his hands against the wall and rises up, turning around to face her only to have her tug him down by his collar to be at eye level.

Her eyes darken as she stares at him, through him. She's never worn makeup a day he has seen her, and he loves that, her crow's feet are in full view and her lips are naturally plump and dark pink. She's blushing, and the wrinkle between her eyebrows deepens.

"Go get ready for me," She says, nodding her head towards what he assumes to be the bathroom. She teethes her lips and he leans down further to try to kiss her, but she eases him back against the wall and releases him from her grip. "I'll be waiting for you."

She drifts away from him and he watches her go into the bedroom, leaving the door open a crack for him. He just stares at it, then pulls his eyes away and looks around the interior of her house. It is evening now, and there are wide windows in every room, letting the pink and orange sky pour inside.

The walls alternate between cream colored and light green, and all over them are an assortment of framed Toulouse-Lautrec paintings and what must be her children's old artwork, along with vintage knick-knacks mounted in the places the latter two don't cover.

The furniture is sparse but filling, a plush caramel colored leather sofa and a black coffee table covered with school papers sits in the living room. He can see into the kitchen, spots chairs around a small table that look like they are covered in patina, or just painted that way.

Brian crosses through the living room, stepping over stacks of withering hardback books. He can smell their musk. She's either just bought them at an antique store or recently pulled them out of her attic; thoughts of each scenario stir up a warmth inside of him. The rugs she has spread over as much of the floor as possible are stiff but their patterns are complex and beautiful.

He finds himself staring down at them, imagining Yekaterina having arranged them in the way that aesthetically pleases her the most. She calls out his name and he curses under his breath, hurries to the bathroom, sweaty socks sticking to the gaps of wood flooring with every step. He places his clothes on top of the wicker hamper in the corner and works as quickly as he can.

After he's finished, he stands in front of the sink and bats water on his face trying to cool himself down. Suddenly there's a knock on the door and he laughs, hears her laughing too on the other side. He opens it a crack and sees her standing right in front of it with a baby blue kimono wrapped around her.

"I got tired of waiting," She admits without him needing to question her, not sounding the least bit sorry. She grins and pushes the door open all the way, sighing at the sight of him undressed. He softened in the bathroom but his dick is swelling again with her staring at him, her nipples hard underneath her silk robe.

She blinks up at him expectantly and he returns the sentiment down to her, leaning his hip against the sink and shaking his head. She acts like he can't see the growing damp spot by her thigh.

"To bed,” She says, offering her hand. He takes it, and she leads him through the open door to her bedroom. Yekaterina takes off her kimono and sits on her bed first, toes curling against the black wrought-iron footboard. He imagines it to be cool to the touch, that she needs it, because her skin is so flushed and warm. She has the ceiling fan on and her hair picks up on top of her head with the breeze. 

She applies lube to herself and he sits down beside her, watching patiently as she works and savoring her small murmurs of arousal. He's staring at her balls, the hair present on her groin that isn't on her legs, and he isn't ready when she yanks him towards her to kiss him hard on the mouth. She tastes more like flesh than anything else, not even smoke or hard cider, like he dreamt about during the weekend.

Her favorite flavor is some godawful, pepper-minty blend, and he's thankful he can't taste it on her hot tongue. She scrapes her teeth over his bottom lip and he eases back to lie down before her. The bedding is softer than his own, a handmade quilt, but the mattress is firmer, more support for her older back. She nudges his thighs to open wider for her and drags her knuckles lightly down his legs.

She tickles him, with the little hairs on her fingers. He's dripping onto his stomach and he starts to jerk himself, but she pulls his arm away by the wrist and tuts, begins to rub her finger around his asshole to get him to shiver. Brian is more of a whiner when he's drunk and usually regrets being that way, but he can tell by the way she's sucking in her lip that she's slightly nervous in the quietness.

"Yekaterina," He sighs. He sits up on his elbows and her eyes move from between his legs up to his own. Her face is pink, as well as her chest, her breasts bouncing gently as she rubs him. He wants her nipples under his tongue. "Hurry up. Christ, I need it."

She pulls her finger back like he knew she would and reaches over to rummage in the nightstand for a condom. She settles between his legs and slips it on with his help, but bats his hand away after to lube up her dick again and she pushes him back onto the bed. Yekaterina sits still then, staring at him with the patience of a saint as he squirms for and pleads with her.

Yekaterina seems to decide the fourth frustrated murmur of her name is enough to have her slide her long finger inside of him slowly, smiling down at him with her tongue between her teeth. He moans in relief, drops his head into the sea of pillows she has piled against her headboard. He only just becomes used to her pumping one finger when she adds another, only just becomes used to that when she adds in a third.

He's sweating and muttering nonsense up at the ceiling fan and its fast, blurred movements that move faster the longer she goes on fingering him. She pulls out completely without warning, sucking the air out of him, before leaning over him and kissing all over his face, his neck, his chest, and then she's gripping one of his pecs as she eases her dick into him.

Brian grunts and draws his legs up as she presses forward to fill him and he wraps his legs around her hips, the slight build-up of fat from a nice lazy life. Yekaterina moans, squeezes his chest with both of her hands as she fucks him slow and hard. Her rough hands tug on his chest hairs, pinch his nipples, and he whines for her, makes her lidded eyes cross at the sound and her hips buck harder.

The bed squeaks underneath them, the iron frame dinging and thudding against the wall. He doesn't think she's blinking at all as she stares down at him. She's speaking to him in a low tone between her deep sighs of pleasure, saying vile things that he is desperate to keep up with, but his attention is scattered, trying to pick up every detail and commit it to memory.

Her hair sticks to her face and chest and looks more black than grey in the dim lighting; he means to say he likes the candles she's lit in the bedroom, that they smell earthy and sweet, that she looks so pretty fucking him.

Brian moans her name instead and reaches his hands up to cup her breasts, squeezes her the same as she is him. Her balls slap against him endlessly, both sending him up to heaven and keeping him grounded.

He's covered his stomach in his own pre-come, the sensation having been lost on him until her eyes drop down to his dick, watching him leak all over himself. She stops muttering to bring her hands down and dig her fingers into his belly, scraping at the thick hairs there, then spreading the pre-come up to his neck. His eyes widen at her thumbs resting on his Adam's apple and he starts begging for her to choke him.  
  
"You're a dirty man," She says, over his rambling to shut him up. Her voice is louder than it has been and it is hoarse, grating inside his ears and rolling his eyes back into his head. He nods, eyes slipping closed as she grips his neck tighter. Yekaterina continues to fuck him and he pinches her waist with his thighs, urging her to choke him harder, fuck him harder.

She complies, but not without mocking him, laughing because she knows he likes it. Brian starts to gasp for air and can feel himself about to come, and he tugs on her wrists so she lets go and he tells her, his words coming out broken. She smiles at him and grabs his dick, jerks him off and thrusts into him harder until he comes across her stomach and breasts.

His come drips down onto his stomach and he swipes it up with a finger and sucks, prompting her to moan and her hips to twitch until she pulls out and comes as well. She sits back on her heels and takes deep breaths to steady herself, resting her hands on her hips, her eyes closed and a blissed out grin on her face. He smiles back, though she doesn't see.

"Yekaterina..." Brian's breathing is still shaky and he's growing cold without her body heat right on him. He sucks in a deep breath and rubs his stomach, looks up at her, with her tousled hair veiling her face and her sweat-slicked skin.

She nods, opening her eyes finally and pushing him over to pull up the blankets for them. She pulls off the condom and tosses it onto the nightstand, settles down to lie beside him. He's sure she has fallen asleep in a matter of seconds, but she hums and lifts her head up to catch him staring at her.  
   
"I'm retiring next year," She says, happily. "I'm going back to France. It's wonderful there." 

"Lucky you," Brian brushes her hair back to look her in the eyes and draws her in closer and she allows him to, burning him up with her hot skin. Her breasts are so soft against his chest. She smiles without showing her teeth, rubbing her forefinger over his bottom lip back and forth. Her eyes drift closed slowly; he thinks she's fallen asleep again and has to bite back a laugh when she lifts up her head once more.

"I'm going to wither away in the Mediterranian sunshine," She continues. His eyes crinkle with his gentle smile, and he wants to kiss her until she quiets. She brings up a hand to curl around his shoulder, her thumb stroking his skin in circles. "You're more than welcome to watch the decaying. I'll buy the plane tickets. Whenever you want to come by..."

She drifts off midsentence and he rolls his eyes at her, the Shakespearian way that she leaves him to fall asleep. He pulls the blankets down and rests his cheek between her breasts, follows close after her. He leaves the sadness washing over him to be dealt with in the morning.


End file.
